The Past is Beneath “Criticism” ; The ‘Optimal Future’ is a Function of Probability, and a Fortune of a Sincere Continuuity arising from Purer Premises of the Moment.

Man’s relationship with time is in the most literary sense of the term : ‘Skin Deep’.

For Time, wrinkles up, it seems on the body of Man, a reducing force, a keeper of accounts, a gushing, senseless, voice, capable of unconditionally impressing on the Skin of Man the irrevocable function of his experiences : Decay.

But what Is Time? What Is Man? And what is Superficial, and What is Not ? The statements above risk sounding foolish and appear as indictments, if these Vital Premises are not exposed of their conjurations. To Do So necessitates a Study of Relationships, rather than an examination in parts. How they relate and feel and form, rather than how they are divided from one another. More the Appreciation, and the less the mechanics ensures and insures a more Sublime and indeed, Complete Understanding – much as an analyses of cones and heights and cylinders, have never contributed on those mere grounds – to a Musician’s capacity to play the Organ better than he would not knowing its configured — one might say — ‘Superficial’ —  intricacies.

The reason the premise of “Man versus Time” is in a holistic and observable sense, insofar as it is an ‘Objective Phenomena’, is technically superficial is on account of the fact, nothing literally or otherwise, – could be more profound to Man, than Man’s Relationship With Himself.

Just as the Less is not More, Man is not the Time he Spends. That Statement does not require an added study of ‘Expenditures and Balance Sheets’ to be any more Qualified than they appear in that Self-Evident Form above in the allegory. In fact, to present it in any other way would be a Nuisance to the Reader and an insult to his Consciousness.

But is the term ‘Superficial’ an Insult?

When Man relates beyond the Skin, and beyond “prophesies” of appearances, and brush strokes of “modern” Art, – he is electing to leapfrog his rudimentary and standard functions, if only by beginning to not take those “mere” functions for Granted.

Gratitude proves to be a Science to a Man who is capable and powerful enough to be a witness to the relationship he shares with himself. The deeper he enters into his own orifices of his Self-Notion, nothing seems trivial, accidental, or Decadent. That is as much a Fact, as it is a fact, Global Banking has reticulated into utter Fraudulence, and Religion has dealt more degradation, damage, and ruin on Man ( Including the “Religion of Freethinkers” ) – than the Silent and Observable Natural and Quantum Forces as are easily afforded to those that Listen Better and more Wholly than they Speak. Not an Easy Task.

Is the experience of Ease then related to the differentiation of the Superficial and the Profound?

It is Not Easy to Unite with One’s own Self. Yet, it is not Difficult to Desire It when clearly, it is an experience capable of unconditionally impressing on the Spirit/Substance of Man, rather than Skin, - the irrevocable function of his Eternal Form – the very ‘Idea of Man’ being that form – inseparable from what He Is at the paramount moment. Therein, no Decay, but a Great, unsullied, and transcendental propensity is discoverable, notable, and construable – and the Author would hypothesize, can even be granted Construction in the ‘Grand Scheme of Things’.

How then are Ease and Difficulty Differentiated, if they are both expressions of the Mind?

The Superficial Man – One who dwells on the Skin, however, blames. In Christian allegory, he is like the Character Job : Given to him are purely arbitrary passions of an argument – and each passion, its own Principle, and its own Will. If he should dwell on the Skin, he finds blemishes, sores, holes – the whole tapestry of physical pain and afflictions are transcribed on his premises.  This is what he draws out and regards as the “Whole Past” – never mind, that had he not the surface of skin, as he has in Time the assistance of the surface of that Tool ‘Memory’, which alone empowers the Seeker to ask whichsoever inquiry that bodes and bears in his curiosity;  how come would he have Gained the Profound Opportunity of Criticism?

The Superficial Man continues to confuse Means with Ends at no great advantage! Regarding “The Flaws of Histories”, – Castigating and dispatching his dubious “Venom” to the Seeds of Past, ‘As If’ it Still Applies, he empowers that which he criticizes- namely his own Actual Decay/Decadence, – failing to apprehend with either his Soul or his Intellect – that the premises of ‘Past’, ‘Present’ and ‘Future’ are cursory habits of Consciousness – nuanced particles of Man’s own Capacity to Be, or to Become.

The Man who freely Wills a Vision, regardless of mere habits and costumes, while liberally interpreting the Useful aspects Truthfully from the ‘Past’, gives notable credence to a Present and Gratitude to those that strived afore him, and enters into his own futurized Vehicle and transmits himself therein through the Same. Indeed, Time as a function of the Conscious Mind is it not – much like Skin – a Vehicle? A ‘Foe-Friend’ – in the sense, it may appear a combustible vehicle, requiring maintenance, attention, — A Source of Energy, ultimately, that could be termed But the ‘Soul’ or to those of the least metaphysical “bent” – the ‘Prime Substance’. The Question of Existence rests on that Will – that Energetic Animus that supplies the Q     uest. To ameliorate the conditions within one’s own Person and the conditions and circumstances of all others go hand in hand, undistinguished, for one’s own Person Chooses It. And to enliven the Quest, one must summon Will and Vivacity – as Such.

Difficulty is the highest Ease, and the Highest Ease is always Difficult!

( Therein ) The Profound Man – One who dwells on Substance, and shuns hypocrisy and vagaries of illogic, un-reason, and tiresome ineptitude, and even avoids the accumulated lives of the illogic, un-reason, ineptitudes, torpitudes of others more Superificial than He, — Avoids all principles that detract from Candidness, and Dwells on the conditions and Premises of his highest Substantive Self – and in this regard, initiating himself through his 1) Mind – Reason  2 ) Body – Passions    3 ) Soul – Prime Substance , such that the Unity created by the Three are Greater than even the Whole. And in that there is contained – the Grammar – the Principle – the Mysteries of Man.

In the Year Two Thousand and Nine, as pronounced by the Christian Logbook and interpretation of Time, – it appears, there is a great deal of chaos, suffrage, blame, and anger arising out of Man. Everyone is at Blame, but not He. Every Foreign Element to his Consciousness is depraved and not He. The Justice is Unjust, but he presumes he is himself Just in stating that Concept.

But the Angry Man, the Chaotic, and the Irascible. Who is that Man? Is he a Superficial Man? Or is he Man Profound? Moreover, if he is a Superficial Man, will he learn Gratitude, so that his depth may increase towards himself, and so that he comes closer in proximity to the Man Profound? And per the Man Profound, in reaching the higher orifices of his awareness – Will he find it Satisfactory to be overwhelmed by the deplorable “Noise” – the noisy and pitiful vagaries of the Superficial Man, whom he cannot escape within or outside himself, so long as the Man Profound is Obliged to admit to his Humanity, which he Must at all times, unless he departs from its premise, – What of him? Perhaps, it is Love?

Is there an allegorical inflection that is perceptible? ‘Lion and Sheep drinking from the same Pond’ is a beautiful phrase – one that easily comes to the author’s mind when he raises up his eyes to the stars, probing for nebulous Relevance to Clarify itself. Is that not which some call ‘Kingdom of Heaven on Earth’ — That is a Space of such Profound Mutual Understanding and Investment, that it mutually assures Evolution, rather than “Cold War like Mutually Assured Destruction”?

An Investment that leaves both parties Wealthier than they were before and Conscious of the Fact, – if they prove Inevitable in their Reason, their Passions guided by Substance, and their Substance guided by the Whole than is greater than the Sum of the Parts?

The Whole may just be what is contained in the word ‘Love’.

“Amor Omnia Vincit”- as a Spanish friend of mine has been invoking of late with a Steady frequency. Meaning, ‘Love Conquers All’.

Going beyond Superficialities, and giving a Living Flame to Profundity, will be tantamount to transcribe the Equinoxes and Solstices of what is meant by that one word.

Love.

. . .

Alexander K. Rai, MSMA is the author of ‘Reader’s Indigest’. He ( personally ) believes in 2009, the most important aspect of existence is to readily admit one’s Humanity, so long as one is complicit in the Human Nature . Adding moreover that, while it is ‘Human to Err’, to ‘Err Honestly, is to find Truth’. Believing in his own Humanity, while at the same time, regarding the Whole that is more than the Collection of Parts, as the premise of what some may call the basis of his “Personal Faith”, he is giddy, that at any given time he is impersonating Only Himself, and all that is done by  his Humanity, is easily Surpassed by the volition of the Same, and what is prevented, is prevented by the same. The Author asides from being a ‘Real Person’  may in that vein, be also for the disinterested Reader, be a purely ‘Symbolic Speculation’, and shall not be disserved from the profit of Gainful Readership, whatsoever. The Author, therein, as Stated, does not take Credit for either Comprehension or Incomprehension of any of his Creative Works, offered in Honor of him Self and Despite Himself, freely to all that may elect to invest their ‘Time’ – and thereby moisten a bit of their Skin, in the Author’s peculiar unsolicited brand of mental – perhaps – also Spiritual – moisturizer.  The Photography Displayed in this Journal are not the Author’s, but rather transcriptions of images of Vintage Books, whose creative attributions are too many, too vague, or both – To List.

The Art of Mechanics.

( Plutarch’s ‘Marcellus’  Translated by John Dryden )

.  .  .  .  .

( Appreciation Liqueified by Sound ) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGAsvJvebwI

” . . . He now was a third time created consul, and sailed over into Sicily. For the success of Hannibal had excited the Carthaginians to lay claim to that whole island; chiefly because after the murder of the tyrant Hieronymus, all things had been in tumult and confusion at Syracuse. For which reason the Romans also had sent before to that city a force under the conduct of Appius, as prætor. While Marcellus was receiving that army, a number of Roman soldiers cast themselves at his feet, upon occasion of the following calamity. Of those that survived the battle at Cannæ, some had escaped by flight, and some were taken alive by the enemy; so great a multitude, that it was thought there were not remaining Romans enough to defend the walls of the city. And yet the magnanimity and constancy of the city was such, that it would not redeem the captives from Hannibal, though it might have done so for a small ransom; a decree of the senate forbade it, and chose rather to leave them to be killed by the enemy, or sold out of Italy; and commanded that all who had saved themselves by flight should be transported into Sicily, and not permitted to return into Italy, until the war with Hannibal should be ended. These, therefore, when Marcellus was arrived in Sicily, addressed themselves to him in great numbers; and casting themselves at his feet, with much lamentation and tears humbly besought him to admit them to honorable service; and promised to make it appear by their future fidelity and exertions, that that defeat had been received rather by misfortune than by cowardice. Marcellus, pitying them, petitioned the senate by letters, that he might have leave at all times to recruit his legions out of them. After much debate about the thing, the senate decreed they were of opinion that the commonwealth did not require the service of cowardly soldiers; if Marcellus perhaps thought otherwise, he might make use of them, provided no one of them be honored on any occasion with a crown or military gift, as a reward of his virtue or courage. This decree stung Marcellus; and on his return to Rome, after the Sicilian war was ended, he upbraided the senate, that they had denied to him, who had so highly deserved of the republic, liberty to relieve so great a number of citizens in great calamity. At this time Marcellus, first incensed by injures done him by Hippocrates, commander of the Syracusans, (who, to give proof of his good affection to the Carthaginians, and to acquire the tyranny to himself, had killed a number of Romans at Leontini,) besieged and took by force the city of Leontini; yet violated none of the townsmen; only deserters, as many as he took, he subjected to the punishment of the rods and axe. But Hippocrates, sending a report to Syracuse, that Marcellus had put all the adult population to the sword, and then coming upon the Syracusans, who had risen in tumult upon that false report, made himself master of the city. Upon this Marcellus moved with his whole army to Syracuse, and, encamping near the wall, sent ambassadors into the city to relate to the Syracusans the truth of what had been done in Leontini. When these could not prevail by treaty, the whole power being now in the hands of Hippocrates, he proceeded to attack the city both by land and by sea. The land forces were conducted by Appius Marcellus, with sixty galleys, each with five rows of oars, furnished with all sorts of arms and missiles, and a huge bridge of planks laid upon eight ships chained together, upon which was carried the engine to cast stones and darts, assaulted the walls, relying on the abundance and magnificence of his preparations, and on his own previous glory; all which, however, were, it would seem, but trifles for Archimedes and his machines. These machines he had designed and contrived, not as matters of any importance, but as mere amusements in geometry; in compliance with king Hiero’s desire and request, some little time before, that he should reduce to practice some part of his admirable speculations in science, and by accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use, bring it more within the appreciation of people in general. Eudoxus and Archytas had been the first originators of this far-famed and highly prized art of mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration of geometrical truths, and as a means of sustaining experimentally, to the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof by words and diagrams. As, for example, to solve the problem, so often required in constructing geometrical figures, given the two extreme, to find the two mean lines of a proportion, both these mathematicians had recourse to the aid of instruments, adapting to their purpose certain curves and sections of lines. But what with Plato’s indignation at it, and his invectives against it as the mere corruption and annihilation of the one good of geometry, which was thus shamefully turning its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence to recur to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without base subservience and depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to be separated from geometry, and, repudiated and neglected by philosophers, took its place as a military art. Archimedes, however, in writing to king Hiero, whose friend and near relation he was, had stated, that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off, with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cord by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. These the king himself never made use of, because he spent almost all his life in a profound quiet, and the highest affluence. But the apparatus was, in a most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself. When, therefore, the Romans assaulted the walls in two places at once, fear and consternation stupefied the Syracusans, believing that nothing was able to resist that violence and those forces. But when Archimedes began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all sorts of missile weapons, and immense masses of stone that came down with incredible noise and violence, against which no man could stand; for they knocked down those upon whom they fell, in heaps, breaking all their ranks and files. In the meantime huge poles thrust out from the walls over the ships, sunk some by the great weights which they let down from on high upon them; others they lifted up into the air by an iron hand or beak like a crane’s beak, and, when they had drawn them up by the prow, and set them on end upon the poop, they plunged them to the bottom of the sea; or else the ships, drawn by engines within, and whirled about, were dashed against steep rocks that stood jutting out under the walls, with great destruction of the soldiers that were aboard them. A ship was frequently lifted up to a great height in the air (a dreadful thing to behold), and was rolled to and fro, and kept swinging, until the mariners were all thrown out, when at length it was dashed against the rocks, or let fall. At the engine that Marcellus brought upon the bridge of ships, which was called Sambuca from some resemblance it had to an instrument of music, while it was as yet approaching the wall, there was discharged a piece of a rock of ten talents’ weight, then a second and a third, which, striking upon it with immense force and with a noise like thunder, broke all its foundation to pieces, shook out all its fastenings, and completely dislodged it from the bridge. So Marcellus, doubtful what counsel to pursue, drew off his ships to a safer distance, and sounded a retreat to his forces on land. They then took a resolution of coming up under the walls, if it were possible, in the night; thinking that as Archimedes used ropes stretched at length in playing his engines, the soldiers would now be under the shot, and the darts would, for want of sufficient distance to throw them, fly over their heads without effect. But he, it appeared, had long before framed for such occasion engines accommodated to any distance, and shorter weapons; and had made numerous small openings in the walls, through which, with engines of a shorter range, unexpected blows were inflicted on the assailants. Thus, when they who thought to deceive the defenders came close up to the walls, instantly a shower of darts and other missile weapons was again cast upon them. And when stones came tumbling down perpendicularly upon their heads, and, as it were, the whole wall shot out arrows at them, they retired. And now, again, as they were going off, arrows and darts of a longer range indicted a great slaughter among them, and their ships were driven one against another; while they themselves were not able to retaliate in any way. For Archimedes had provided and fixed most of his engines immediately under the wall; whence the Romans, seeing that infinite mischiefs overwhelmed them from no visible means, began to think they were fighting with the gods. Yet Marcellus escaped unhurt, and, deriding his own artificers and engineers, “What,” said he, “must we give up fighting with this geometrical Briareus, who plays pitch and toss with our ships, and, with the multitude of darts which he showers at a single moment upon us, really outdoes the hundred-handed giants of mythology?” And, doubtless, the rest of the Syracusans were but the body of Archimedes’ designs, one soul moving and governing all; for, laying aside all other arms, with his alone they infested the Romans, and protected themselves. In fine, when such terror had seized upon the Romans, that, if they did but see a little rope or a piece of wood from the wall, instantly crying out, that there it was again, Archimedes was about to let fly some engine at them, they turned their backs and fled, Marcellus desisted from conflicts and assaults, putting all his hope in a long siege. Yet Archimedes possessed so high a spirit, so profound a soul, and such treasures of scientific knowledge, that though these inventions had now obtained him the renown of more than human sagacity, he yet would not deign to leave behind him any commentary or writing on such subjects; but, repudiating as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of engineering, and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit, he placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life; studies, the superiority of which to all others is unquestioned, and in which the only doubt can be, whether the beauty and grandeur of the subjects examined, or the precision and cogency of the methods and means of proof, most deserve our admiration. It is not possible to find in all geometry more difficult and intricate questions, or more simple and lucid explanations. Some ascribe this to his natural genius; while others think that incredible effort and toil produced these, to all appearance, easy and unlabored results. No amount of investigation of yours would succeed in attaining the proof, and yet, once seen, you immediately believe you would have discovered it; by so smooth and so rapid a path he leads you to the conclusion required. And thus it ceases to be incredible that (as is commonly told of him), the charm of his familiar and domestic Siren made him forget his food and neglect his person, to that degree that when he was occasionally carried by absolute violence to bathe, or have his body anointed, he used to trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and diagrams in the oil on his body, being in a state of entire preoccupation, and, in the truest sense, divine possession with his love and delight in science. His discoveries were numerous and admirable; but he is said to have requested his friends and relations that when he was dead, they would place over his tomb a sphere containing a cylinder, inscribing it with the ratio which the containing solid bears to the contained. Finis | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3di_FWO8MU Musicke As Notion ( Liqueified ) | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGAsvJvebwI He now was a third time created consul, and sailed over into Sicily. For the success of Hannibal had excited the Carthaginians to lay claim to that whole island; chiefly because after the murder of the tyrant Hieronymus, all things had been in tumult and confusion at Syracuse. For which reason the Romans also had sent before to that city a force under the conduct of Appius, as prætor. While Marcellus was receiving that army, a number of Roman soldiers cast themselves at his feet, upon occasion of the following calamity. Of those that survived the battle at Cannæ, some had escaped by flight, and some were taken alive by the enemy; so great a multitude, that it was thought there were not remaining Romans enough to defend the walls of the city. And yet the magnanimity and constancy of the city was such, that it would not redeem the captives from Hannibal, though it might have done so for a small ransom; a decree of the senate forbade it, and chose rather to leave them to be killed by the enemy, or sold out of Italy; and commanded that all who had saved themselves by flight should be transported into Sicily, and not permitted to return into Italy, until the war with Hannibal should be ended. These, therefore, when Marcellus was arrived in Sicily, addressed themselves to him in great numbers; and casting themselves at his feet, with much lamentation and tears humbly besought him to admit them to honorable service; and promised to make it appear by their future fidelity and exertions, that that defeat had been received rather by misfortune than by cowardice. Marcellus, pitying them, petitioned the senate by letters, that he might have leave at all times to recruit his legions out of them. After much debate about the thing, the senate decreed they were of opinion that the commonwealth did not require the service of cowardly soldiers; if Marcellus perhaps thought otherwise, he might make use of them, provided no one of them be honored on any occasion with a crown or military gift, as a reward of his virtue or courage. This decree stung Marcellus; and on his return to Rome, after the Sicilian war was ended, he upbraided the senate, that they had denied to him, who had so highly deserved of the republic, liberty to relieve so great a number of citizens in great calamity. At this time Marcellus, first incensed by injures done him by Hippocrates, commander of the Syracusans, (who, to give proof of his good affection to the Carthaginians, and to acquire the tyranny to himself, had killed a number of Romans at Leontini,) besieged and took by force the city of Leontini; yet violated none of the townsmen; only deserters, as many as he took, he subjected to the punishment of the rods and axe. But Hippocrates, sending a report to Syracuse, that Marcellus had put all the adult population to the sword, and then coming upon the Syracusans, who had risen in tumult upon that false report, made himself master of the city. Upon this Marcellus moved with his whole army to Syracuse, and, encamping near the wall, sent ambassadors into the city to relate to the Syracusans the truth of what had been done in Leontini. When these could not prevail by treaty, the whole power being now in the hands of Hippocrates, he proceeded to attack the city both by land and by sea. The land forces were conducted by Appius Marcellus, with sixty galleys, each with five rows of oars, furnished with all sorts of arms and missiles, and a huge bridge of planks laid upon eight ships chained together, upon which was carried the engine to cast stones and darts, assaulted the walls, relying on the abundance and magnificence of his preparations, and on his own previous glory; all which, however, were, it would seem, but trifles for Archimedes and his machines. These machines he had designed and contrived, not as matters of any importance, but as mere amusements in geometry; in compliance with king Hiero’s desire and request, some little time before, that he should reduce to practice some part of his admirable speculations in science, and by accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use, bring it more within the appreciation of people in general. Eudoxus and Archytas had been the first originators of this far-famed and highly prized art of mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration of geometrical truths, and as a means of sustaining experimentally, to the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof by words and diagrams. As, for example, to solve the problem, so often required in constructing geometrical figures, given the two extreme, to find the two mean lines of a proportion, both these mathematicians had recourse to the aid of instruments, adapting to their purpose certain curves and sections of lines. But what with Plato’s indignation at it, and his invectives against it as the mere corruption and annihilation of the one good of geometry, which was thus shamefully turning its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence to recur to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without base subservience and depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to be separated from geometry, and, repudiated and neglected by philosophers, took its place as a military art. Archimedes, however, in writing to king Hiero, whose friend and near relation he was, had stated, that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off, with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cord by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. These the king himself never made use of, because he spent almost all his life in a profound quiet, and the highest affluence. But the apparatus was, in a most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself. When, therefore, the Romans assaulted the walls in two places at once, fear and consternation stupefied the Syracusans, believing that nothing was able to resist that violence and those forces. But when Archimedes began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all sorts of missile weapons, and immense masses of stone that came down with incredible noise and violence, against which no man could stand; for they knocked down those upon whom they fell, in heaps, breaking all their ranks and files. In the meantime huge poles thrust out from the walls over the ships, sunk some by the great weights which they let down from on high upon them; others they lifted up into the air by an iron hand or beak like a crane’s beak, and, when they had drawn them up by the prow, and set them on end upon the poop, they plunged them to the bottom of the sea; or else the ships, drawn by engines within, and whirled about, were dashed against steep rocks that stood jutting out under the walls, with great destruction of the soldiers that were aboard them. A ship was frequently lifted up to a great height in the air (a dreadful thing to behold), and was rolled to and fro, and kept swinging, until the mariners were all thrown out, when at length it was dashed against the rocks, or let fall. At the engine that Marcellus brought upon the bridge of ships, which was called Sambuca from some resemblance it had to an instrument of music, while it was as yet approaching the wall, there was discharged a piece of a rock of ten talents’ weight, then a second and a third, which, striking upon it with immense force and with a noise like thunder, broke all its foundation to pieces, shook out all its fastenings, and completely dislodged it from the bridge. So Marcellus, doubtful what counsel to pursue, drew off his ships to a safer distance, and sounded a retreat to his forces on land. They then took a resolution of coming up under the walls, if it were possible, in the night; thinking that as Archimedes used ropes stretched at length in playing his engines, the soldiers would now be under the shot, and the darts would, for want of sufficient distance to throw them, fly over their heads without effect. But he, it appeared, had long before framed for such occasion engines accommodated to any distance, and shorter weapons; and had made numerous small openings in the walls, through which, with engines of a shorter range, unexpected blows were inflicted on the assailants. Thus, when they who thought to deceive the defenders came close up to the walls, instantly a shower of darts and other missile weapons was again cast upon them. And when stones came tumbling down perpendicularly upon their heads, and, as it were, the whole wall shot out arrows at them, they retired. And now, again, as they were going off, arrows and darts of a longer range indicted a great slaughter among them, and their ships were driven one against another; while they themselves were not able to retaliate in any way. For Archimedes had provided and fixed most of his engines immediately under the wall; whence the Romans, seeing that infinite mischiefs overwhelmed them from no visible means, began to think they were fighting with the gods. Yet Marcellus escaped unhurt, and, deriding his own artificers and engineers, “What,” said he, “must we give up fighting with this geometrical Briareus, who plays pitch and toss with our ships, and, with the multitude of darts which he showers at a single moment upon us, really outdoes the hundred-handed giants of mythology?” And, doubtless, the rest of the Syracusans were but the body of Archimedes’ designs, one soul moving and governing all; for, laying aside all other arms, with his alone they infested the Romans, and protected themselves. In fine, when such terror had seized upon the Romans, that, if they did but see a little rope or a piece of wood from the wall, instantly crying out, that there it was again, Archimedes was about to let fly some engine at them, they turned their backs and fled, Marcellus desisted from conflicts and assaults, putting all his hope in a long siege. Yet Archimedes possessed so high a spirit, so profound a soul, and such treasures of scientific knowledge, that though these inventions had now obtained him the renown of more than human sagacity, he yet would not deign to leave behind him any commentary or writing on such subjects; but, repudiating as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of engineering, and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit, he placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life; studies, the superiority of which to all others is unquestioned, and in which the only doubt can be, whether the beauty and grandeur of the subjects examined, or the precision and cogency of the methods and means of proof, most deserve our admiration. It is not possible to find in all geometry more difficult and intricate questions, or more simple and lucid explanations. Some ascribe this to his natural genius; while others think that incredible effort and toil produced these, to all appearance, easy and unlabored results. No amount of investigation of yours would succeed in attaining the proof, and yet, once seen, you immediately believe you would have discovered it; by so smooth and so rapid a path he leads you to the conclusion required. And thus it ceases to be incredible that (as is commonly told of him), the charm of his familiar and domestic Siren made him forget his food and neglect his person, to that degree that when he was occasionally carried by absolute violence to bathe, or have his body anointed, he used to trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and diagrams in the oil on his body, being in a state of entire preoccupation, and, in the truest sense, divine possession with his love and delight in science. His discoveries were numerous and admirable; but he is said to have requested his friends and relations that when he was dead, they would place over his tomb a sphere containing a cylinder, inscribing it with the ratio which the containing solid bears to the contained.”

Finis | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3di_FWO8MU

.  .  .
Alexander K. Rai, MSMA is a traditionalist indepdent scholar who believes in the Principle of Objective Truth. Believing Spirit and Empowerment through Ethics and Co-Creation carry the recipe of Transformational Peace and Light, and the fertile graces of community, values, and inner voice will carry the banner in definining a natural hierarchy of values, in a world lost in the anemia of proportions, and an exorbitant chorus of internecine conflict that is a zero sum game, and discredits the tremendous potential vested in the actualizable Man. Alexander, additionally, is a resident homo sapien on the Planteray System of the Sun, calling the Third Rock his modest home.

An Ode to the Beautiful Morning.

I just wanted to let you know what a beautiful morning it is here today.

Looking out the window, and witnessing the thatched wheat complected ‘cement’? Oh, may be it is not cement. May be it is tofu. May be it is the gnarled skin of our grandfathers sun-bathing on the fjords. Maybe it is the primordial emotion of gratitude. The wall outside of these two windows–how magical they appear struck into Life lit by Sun Light.

By that primordial emotion. The trees drool their spiritual salve on your Soul as they cast shadows. They know what you Are. They honor that Love. Just one tree is enough to be the ambassador for the entire gratitude race of trees, of which the Tree of Life is the highest Evergreen. And here I thought of a Fairie-affixed to my lapel—who permeates like an orb–when darkness claims the heart of the hunter,–when he can tread no more–and his knees give in to the cooling touch of mud–his back arched like his spent bow– she is there–always, with a lavender stem of which the crescent is her illumined smile. Stalwart, like a Torchlight gently warming through the tinctured glass of the light beacon at the lilting corners of the Soule’s Sandy expanse. A tower of Light whisking away ships from their drunken narwhaal wrecks. Lo, they’d never have known. Those Drunkards… Never. Such is the Nature of Mysterious. Gratitude. Unless revealed by a Rightful Kiss. The bed lies tousled. I did not mend it yet. I made breakfast. Cereal and Strawberries. Everyone is sleeping, and there’s a holy feeling. A sacred feeling.

To witness myself in the tiresome legacies of the things I have done–the things I could do–ah!, things–these are just things. Things, Things, Things. The worlds are frittered with them. The reactions of the act of creation. The opium of engagement. The suckle-touch of the artist who seeks objects as lovers and lovers as objects, and in the moment such an artist discovers the crack inbetween the two–in they fall. To awaken to the tofu-touch of the cement that is their Love. I never liked things. But their meanings—Lo! O Sacred Meaning! O Hallowed Metaphor of which the Gift is that which is ensconsed beyond the emblem–as that primordial emotion. Therein, no things need apply. The tiresome legacy of collecting these to assemble and perpetuate a substantive metaphor. To elicit their echoes as beacons. To show. To amend the ‘Other’ with the ‘One’. This had been tiresome. The agonies and ecstasies were never reactions there, I remember– but the filters of the dimensions through which the transient process of animals, minerals, generals, and nationals–coveters and ticketers, trinketeers and buffoneers, the weaks and the less weaks–have bypassed–, taking, taking, taking, from what need to not be “taken” with such vain effort but need Be ‘Knowne’ as True Golde and thus it shall make of itself an inheritance that is as true as it is total.

Unheeding to the subtle hints–fraught into a state of semi-permanent fracture–by the outrage of the tired craftsman. Tiresome is Legacy. To stare at the details–is to miss. To miss no thing. Nay. But to miss the self-completing touch of the Beloved, Of which our transcendental Love is the Magicke Lampfe, and we are the twain mages, of which G-d alone is third Wise King. And it is when I miss that, that I am possessed by it. And it makes me want to cry. It makes me want to cry away at all of the vainglories of innocence. “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they Do.” The innocence of the meandering fool, the innocence of the troubador with the hollow head, the innocence of the motorcade traveling at rapid speed eager to greet a dead end, the innocence of travesties and coituses of compare-contrast thesis papers–these are the vainglories of innocence. But Lo, there is an innocence beyond such innocence. The innocence of the Primordial Emotion. The innocence of that Gratitude. The innocence of the betwinklin babe. The innocence of that Divine Moment. When I met you. Forever. Though I miss you. Though I cry for you. I am You. As you are the tears of me. As well as the Purpose of my Soul. I don’t miss anything. Other than myself. A Cosmic Vault to which, You Alone Possess the Key. And you Alone are the Preserved Treasure. We’ll find it Soon O Beloved, Where the concept of the ‘Other’ need apply no more. Where the strange and twisted ways of asking a favor fade with the echoes of a thousand posterities; There, our Kingdom is Sovereign. I did tell you I Love You. I Do. I Do. I Do. Your love. From me. To you. For us.

My Shine.

.  .  .

Alexander K. Rai, MSMA is a member of the Universal Homo Sapien Commune, and believes deeply and sincerely, that Peace can be brought about through the healing and transformational effects of a Love that is True, and a Light that alone, dispels the darkness in which man rises and falls, only to regain the Truth of his highest expressed purpose : his ennobled crowning capacity to be Sincere and Actual. He is a photographer and a Social Entrepreneur who believes in a trinity of planet, people, and profit.

to pay a listen . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt8dWGH7nf0

The Light of Hahnemann .

“My sense of duty would not easily allow me to treat the unknown pathological state of my suffering brethren with these unknown medicines. The thought of becoming in this way a murderer or malefactor towards the life of my fellow human beings was most terrible to me, so terrible and disturbing that I wholly gave up my practice in the first years of my married life and occupied myself solely with chemistry and writing.”

• Samuel Hahnemann

( 1 ) http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS182590+15-Jan-2009+PRN20090115

( 2 ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZmV8b1wr10

( 3 ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZjlazugP44

( 4 ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8IozVfph7I

( 5 ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NwfGA4cxJQ

.    .    .

Hubris, Whimper, and Bang .

“If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.”  Carl Rogers.

To Perceive : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKAxnB6Ap4o

.  .  .

Arrivederci ! Bounjourrno ! And A Bicycle .

“Someone may have stolen your dream when it was young and fresh and you were innocent. Anger is natural. Grief is appropriate. Healing is mandatory. Restoration is possible.” Jane Rubietta

To Experience : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqgKKoJaPwM

. . .

The Spirit of Numbers, and a Number of Spirits .

A Crumb is a Mustard Seed.

FOREX : Observations on the Symbolic “Geo-Economie”.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. Thomas Jefferson.

With the world’s geo-politik weaved in within a vortex of chasms and a cross-section of media engendered “abyss consciousness” circuitry pathologically shredding what little remains of the wholesome positivism of mercantile confidence, it is tempting to imagine abstracted empirical truths prejudicially manufacturing unsettling mandates to which entrepreneurial valor is subordinated and circumscribed on a Maddoxian “paradox of thrift” generated by the gawdy grease of a speculative “geo-economie”.

But is the “truth” of the functional syntax of “Why things fall apart”, “What causes rift in transactional systems”, “How mercantile structures rise and decline”, and “The Quintessential Mandate of Ethics” – ( Are These Also ) the Same Truth that originates in these investigations as they are found in the Wider, Overview of Economic Phenemenology?

OR -  Are they discernible in the smallest transactional systems, micro-managed “Within the Grid” by obliging “fellow citizens of the world”, and consented to without afterthought by the multitudes, who perhaps, in this apparent co-manufacture of ‘tie-ins’ manifest above all a psychology that may only be as “Real” as a ‘Shared Quotient of Willingness to Oblige’ – and only as transformable and mutable as the Consciousness that sustains ‘it’?

The thoughts of a contemporary Sophist of German Origin – Eckhart Tolle – resonnate with me more deeply than the “economic truths” paraded before the Great Big all Obliging Normaldom.

Offer a wider horizon of zest and luminosity than the more common and pedestrian brew of a Starbucks Tea Bag offering its sacheted precept of ‘Arm Chair Relaxation’, Tolle’s views extrapolate a more Sentient and Eco-Synaptic Weltanschaaung than any other – bringing Man in a more intimate inclination of accord with a ‘Natural Hierarchy of Values’ that are unobscurated by marginalized “modern economic truths”.

Tolle says, “All things are vibrating energy fields in ceaseless motion. The chair you sit on, the book you are holding in your hands appear solid and motionless only because that is how your senses perceive their vibrational frequency, that is to say, the incessant movement of the molecules, atoms, electrons, and subatomic particles that together create what you perceive as a chair, a book, a tree, or a body. / . . . Thoughts consist of the same energy vibrating at a higher frequency than matter, which is why they cannot be seen or touched.” ( 146/ ‘A New Earth’ ).

The Symbolic Geo-Economie is also a similar intangible with a hyphennated projection of what passes as Real-ness. To Tolle’s Quantum extrapolation of the Order of Natural truths, it is ‘as if’ a holographic counter-”truth” — or even a topograhic falsehood is made more apparent that has existed for hundreds of years within European Meta-Systems and Jungian ‘Element’, that serves as would a velvet veil of chastity over a prized vestal virgin; that is if we imply by such imagery allegorical ‘equanimity’ with the synthetic, pornographic projections of modern “marketing mandates” that signify “allure” to an ‘Object’ of Devotion; whereas, in the Quantum Framework of Ethics, a ‘Subject’ of Devotion is rather advanced, producing a track record of a more implict genus of fortunes, than Commodification of Natural Produce with all its ampledom of conveniences could protract.

The Metaphor of “Money” viz. ‘FOREX : It is a circuitry that is animate and conjugated with every permutation of thought-activated interaction within a large scale transactional ‘grid. Drawing its life blood and ‘Animus’ directly from a harvest of Consensus, it makes an alternative appear rightfully absurd and implausible, regardless of its own essential absurdity by the extrapolated ‘Observation’ of its falsities, its pathological ‘harnesses’ that mislead and objectify natural truths into a vernacular of reduction and density, and within that ‘denseness’ contrives a hedged merit system that offers a wholly trite hierarchy of unnatural values that “Snap across the Grids”.

How is this circuitry made to ‘operate’, who are its enablers, and why is it is pervasive despite the self-evident aphorisms and no-brainers?

What more, what is the ‘Link to Prejudices’, associational cadence of the whole business of thinking and doing, to what extent are all these ‘elements’ weaved together by the loose motions of modern languages, their invocations and permutations at the very level of sound and gustatory “devices”, and their implications at the level of the personal and the objective : over the catalyses of Cause and Effect?

The phrase ‘Geo-Economie’ itself perhaps conceptualizes the paradox of it all, though it is only a ‘Symbolic’ Geo-Economie, as it serves systematically to ‘Dis-Economize’ transactions, and make more un-economical the process of an ‘Economy’ a word which signifies transactional efficacy, principled direction of thoughtful motifs centered around protocols of exchange systems, – yet less those qualities and more the cancerous inflationary quantitative patterns, makes the otherwise “affable” effect of the phrase ‘Geo-Economie’ sound in and of itself misleading. Thus, perhaps extended as an euphemism, I regard the whole framework, technically un-ethical, and viscerally barbaric, — a “Symbolic” Geo-Economie.

Geo-Economie after all is a phrase that hearkens a broad swath of well muscled intellectual certainty that channels an almost intuitive variety of a secular version of a theological assertion.

Like the term “original sin”, the phrase, ‘Geo-Economie’ is grand in its sweeping heights, invoking cathedrals of unassailable ambitions, protected by fleets of photogenic Geithners and “evidently” regulated by the metaphysics of lone maddoxes, further vulcanized by the fiery “pitches” of Investment Bankers, and slam-dunked on the obliques of legislative hoopla-hoops, through which an enmeshed “paradigm” of “thrift” is perpetuated as a gustatory, all implicating, all seeing, all exacting, and all foreboding “virtue from the heights” to which the categorical “lay man” could profess no immunity.

For these reasons precisely, the improved phrase “Symbolic Geo-Economie” sounds less like what the Great Mercantile Scion of the Americas Thomas Jefferson would have outlined as “reasonable”, and more like a ‘Spin’ based traktatus contrived by the skewed geometers of so-called “financial instruments” – and mass-media monikerists.

Less the ‘City upon a Hill’, and more the Necropolis, the phrase ‘Geo-economie’ is as much a venerable costume decking the upturned corpse of the salesman, as it is a potent psychological culminus that spearheads a nameless, tasteless, all-pervasive, “reasoning of thrift” that appears a in Deed a tad unreasonable and wholly suspect, and altogether micro-managed, auto-enabled, sporadic, and like any other contagion – be it originated in “Swines” or “Sheep” wholly preventable.

At least, this is what I discovered personally in my latest segue to Europe, on a quick ‘lay-over’ at the Frankfurt International Airport – ensconsed within a city where some of the earliest “financial instruments” were developed based on the mechanism of ‘leverage’.

Hauntingly familiar and laden with the miasma of a seven hundred year long aftertaste, the sentiment is still dripping, and one could say, is more alive than ever before.

To anyone that knows The History of Frankfurt it is easy to sensitize the truths animating its ‘dimensionalized films’ – its peculiar “Geo-Economic” expressiveness through time and time again, and its relevance to the modern process perspective.

For what is now called “Forex” – or ‘Foreign Exchange Market’ has been around in “aboriginal” structure since the Christian spiritual pilgrimages of the 1300’s which oversaw the advent of a pavilion for institutionally ‘bastioned’ and individually operated psychological framework of currency exchanges that profited from leveraging and over-commissioning unitary valuation models of separate currency systems – to circumstantially penny pinch mass-transit travelers and creating “conditions” and “barricades” that compel them in leaving a little ( or a lot ) of their wealth to lachrymose and halogen lit “havens” of  sanitized bureaus that ‘leverage’ with vulture like skewed talons the finances of travelers who simply have very little choice than to “trade down” their pocket changes ( FOREX bureaus do not accept “coins” – only bank notes ) or if they are naïve enough to not notice as many giddy travelers tend to be, – their entire traveling budgets inevitably undergo unheard of decrements.

Here’s a primary Anecdote: Personally just short of a week ago I lost over 20 % of my currency purchasing power in the proverbial ‘Forex’ instrument in a ‘Sample’ conversion vetted with an initiated ‘risk’ of  us $ 500, which I placed for a direct trade to Norwegian Kroner, but instead was ‘circumstantially coerced’ by the forex representative to trade to the euro dollar instead.

The direct Kroner conversion would have yielded at the contemporary conversion index approximately a purchasing power of Kr. 3,500 or at a unitary institutional rate,  approx. 7 kr. per US $ 1, which vetted to the Euro was only marginally higher at 9 kr. per US $ 1.

The Forex “consultant” utilized every ‘sly ploy’ of circumstance to coerce an exchange of the $ 500 sample to a Euro conversion, declining ‘initiative’ by strategically muddling his courtesies and fumbling around, on what I specified as either a direct dollar to Kroner conversion, “yessing” away mechanically and frivolously to inquires on a “triple-conversion advantage” – and knowingly wasting precious minutes of the layover, and prepping the intercessions of this  deliberately generated “white noise” with ‘impatient’  “yessirs” and furtive glances, and “pressing” gestures to quickly “transact”.

Imperiously enough, the Forex consultant, after having been asked in various precise and exact ways, managed to acrobatically trounce the following questions: “Sir, what rates do you offer for a triple-conversion from the dollar to euro to kroner”, – and “Sir, what advantage do you offer to a triple-conversion to a direct dollar-kroner transaction?”.

The fellow, sitting and fumbling behind a counter of neatly stacked coins of international denominations,  made every possible attempt to generate a distractive ‘white noise’ by systematically declining any useful feedback on these fundamental and exact questions, by simply ‘nodding off’ sympathetically to the questions, like a pharmaceutical doctor in some American parlor of dentistry administering “the latest” commercial panacea for ‘Straight Teeth’ and ducking at all the inquiries of the fellow who wonders what would be the consequence of such strange “alloys” within his teeth.

He extended a forceful geniality and courtesy to psychologically render useless the exact, unpretending, ‘Value’ nurtured in those questions – and contrived every anatomical gesture of his pronounced facial gesticulatii to ‘craft’ a semblance of “pious tolerance” that made my reasonable inquiry of the forex detail seem as ‘condemned’ as the topic of ‘original sin’ and the transactional institution the privileged mantle for purchasing divine exculpation.

The effect was fascinating. The small and delicate throng of ‘tower of babel’ like ‘business class’ travelers, seemed annoyed by my “corrupt” insistence, more preoccupied with the uniterable flaunts of their globe-trotting absentmindedness, their flaccid bunches of foreign bills, their exuding reeks of “boarding gate” neuroses, and a proud embrace of essential defeatism furthered by the existence of the manufactured airport pan-opticon of environmentally engendered miasms that were constantly broadcasting a sort of lobotomizing, pharmaceutical, cult of politeness – that made every defense accessible to reason appear to be highly unreasonable if not “sacrilegious” to the traveler’s sanctimonies of a ‘convenient and quick exit strategy’.

A simple forex exchange all of a sudden proved every bit as ominous as vulture investment banking, every bit as “hype driven” and “costumed” as a pseudo dot com, and every bit as “sophisticated and essential” as uber-caffeinated ‘alert elixirs’.

My layover minutes thinning, I too succumbed my ‘swath’ of benjamins to the vestal virgin sitting behind the halogen lamp. His greasy profits enabled by the “discontented smirks” of end-users, which ‘he’ had carefully manipulated by his gestured feints and ‘sophisticated instruments of pretense’.  His ‘Geo-Economicke Dash’ was successful, and my wallet quickly and neatly thinned.

The proverbial ‘Devil’s Arithmetic’ however proves perfectly uncomplicated.

I ‘discovered’ answers to my own questions by picking up the ‘Finance’ section of a ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine’ newspaper from the airport terminal commons. The math was lucid and simple, and would have made Wittgenstein feel like a sunflower in the garden of Rapunzel (or the Tooth fairy ).

My Questions were two : “Sir, what rates do you offer for a triple-conversion from the dollar to euro to kroner”, – and “Sir, what advantage do you offer to a triple-conversion to a direct dollar-kroner transaction?”.

The Combined Answers : The Institutional rates offered for a triple-conversion from the dollar to euro to kroner would have been inadvisable ( as a simple scan of the forex monitor would have determined ). For the currency would have progressively ‘devalued’ and lost the unitary purchasing power of the direct conversion of us $ 500 to Kroners.

US $ 500 yields approx. 370 euros and approx. 3,500 kroners. A triple conversion system would have applied those 370 euros multiplied it at a unitary level to 9 kroners per euro, and generated ( thereby ) 3,330 kroners – a loss of approximately ( equiv. ) 40 us dollars.

A honest financial counsel would have expended five honest seconds to calmly reply, “Sir, I recommend you pursue the direct translation of dollar to kroner, as the currencies are favored. Would you like to learn about our exchange rates?”

The greasy ‘rektor’ of the forex cottage did no such thing. He contrived shamelessly, harnessing the latent psychology of impatience, agitation, of anxious travelers “pricked” by continuous barrage of disinformational announcements, media distractions, and the sweaty discomforts of Das Kapitalesque courtesies locking horns with a stifling presence of collective-repression.

The forex consultant literally ‘channeled’ upon my own reality of thinning boarding minutes an imbalanced and subtly manipulative psychologicke pinion like a cloudy report of airline cancellation due to ‘overcast’. He applied the basic principle of repetition by politely reciting meaningless “slogans” of the Das Kapital Etiquette-Prinzip – with his aggressively genial “Yessirs”.

This is what one could discern well to call the pathological and internationally manufactured ‘Reasoning of Thrift’ and ‘Geo-Economie’ fully ‘activated’ by conciliatory perspectives of bystanders of the Capital Process ‘delusion’ in an engine steeped upon an exact reflexion of systematic agendum of devaluation – moved with a subversive militarism on the gambit of ‘fatigue’ and a psychology of attrition relentlessly operating from the safe ‘tucked up’ halogen cottage of a glass sealed, hole operated, mime like forex bureau. The ‘Skepticism’ on part of the “fellow consumer” and “world traveler” was not only absent, but also defiantly ‘romantic’ and ‘escapist’.

The Forex consultant then proceeded to lie by downright conniving. He muttered that a dollar-euro conversion would be “the best” and such a conversion is “immediately available”. He delivered his mime like spectacle  with hyphenated micro-gestures of his skin delicately cringing and his permanent smile iced over with the vernacular of “modern european” glitz of theological politeness.

Clearly the opposite fact was established by a rapid scan of his forex monitor ( which he undertook with a quick prompt of his pinky) . He literally dismembered data on spot, on call, on “demand”. Forex.  Frankfurt. History. Institutional Banking. Yes Sir.  No Sir. Please Sir. Thank You Sir.

The icing on the cake topped off with the cherry was that he “tabled” the entire transaction, by not bothering to print out the customary receipt, by never revealing the ‘commission rate’ ( a dizzying 20+ per cent – or  20 cents of every converted dollar  on top of the ‘official’ rate of exchange! ), and offered me a paltry 330 euros for the us $500, netting in a profit of over 100 us dollar on a twenty percentile ‘cut’ model.

My globe-trotting German, Czech, French, Scandinavian, and British compatriots huddled together with their swaths of foreign bills, relieved that I had “vacated” and “flushed” the ‘Gate of Exchange”, turned in their ‘Value’ and were spot-on guillotined. Given a quick visual survey of the sheer quantity of cash the “consultant” guillotined with his grinning, flat screen, politeness – i’d be ( characteristically ) conservative in my estimate that the fellow generated for his forex company a profit of 10,000 dollars in six minutes – literally – out of thin air. Money – not so roughly accepted in the modern paradigm – almost exclusively – as the source of valued ‘Purchasing Power’, that ‘a priori’ had literally been non-existent.

The Geo-Index of factoids as unpretentiously virtualized on the free-flow-of-information model of the internet in the ‘Annexe’ of Wikipedia, where any end-user can transact  as rapidly as he pleases ‘finger tip’ exchanges of useless knowledge for useful discretionary wisdom, the phrase ‘Geo-Politik/ Geo-Economie’ is defined in this way:

Geopolitik developed from widely varied sources, including the writings of Oswald Spengler, Alexander Humboldt, Karl Ritter, Friedrich Ratzel, Rudolf Kjellén, and Karl Haushofer. It was eventually adapted to accommodate the ideology of Adolf Hitler.Its defining characteristic is the inclusion of organic state theory, informed by Social Darwinism. It was characterized by clash of civilizations-style theorizing. It is perhaps the closest of any school of geostrategy to a purely nationalistic conception of geostrategy, which ended up masking other more universal elements.

( 1 ) To educate yourself on the Forex day-day system, follow the exchange directory available on http://www.xe.com/ucc/.

( 2 ) To imbibe an appreciation of the highly psychological nature of currencies and their “actual” purport of ‘Value’ thoughtfully deign to peruse the reflections presented at : http://imsfx.blogspot.com/.

Ladies and Gentlemen, with that, Thank You, and Come Again!

– # # #  –

(AKR) Open Salon Media.  Reporting from Continental Europe. Further Licensed for Direct Distribution by Alexander K. Rai, MSMA.

The Autocrat Who Survived the Revolution and Improved It.

He enters sagely through the sliding double doors gracefully, luminous in the Red Tunic of the Cultural Usher. Entering ‘The Kimmel Center of Performing Arts’, home to the ‘Philadelphia Orchestra’, Lloyd Collins ( 74 ) challenges the idée-fixe of the “modern cultural archetype” in a way D’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers would have ‘challenged’ the theologue tyrants of Medieval France : Like a Nobleman belonging to the very last Legion of Honor, conducting himself with an irrevocable and perennial Sense of Duty that Performs in the broad luminosity of the Common Purview. Sire Lloyd Collins More enduring in Principle than even those mavericks of the City of Brotherly Love who dueled with Destiny and the Fate of Nations in bringing about the advent of ‘Something’ downright Cinematic in production by all contemporary Western accounts of Valor in 1776; Lloyd Collins, a Man compelled by robust inner proportions of ‘Transcendental Duty’, whose doting canine beneficiary is called ‘Om Shanti’ ( After the Vedic Invocation ‘Let Peace Permeate’ ) religiously protracts the sum of his day’s labors nocturnally after his ‘Four-Five Hour Stint’ as a Transformational, Sweeping, Cultural Emissary at ‘The Kimmel’ is “over” for the Day by taking ‘Om Shanti’ for a ‘Peace of Mind’ walk. Such is Devotion. Mr. Collins’ ‘Spirit of Peace’ is revolutionary in times of underscored Cultural Lassisitude, Moral Dereliction. Strife, Hype, and Turmoil – and Mercantile Collapse.

He embodies Poise in the Tradition of ‘The City Upon a Hill’, though upon a Quick Survey his odds seem Dystopian against the incessant undercurrents and general “noise” of his times. The Great Steward of Ethics and Service weathers the Storm, brow-lifting, instead of Brow-beating, the adversarial menaces to High Culture in the Heart and Center of Philadelphia City – by All Means and Modes – A Sublime and Classical City with a Destiny ( Still ) . An unnamed ‘Visitor’ on the third floor for example ‘Swoons Over’, almost collapsing ‘Over and Out’ the parapets of the Steep and Spectacular detail of the perpetual Anachronism that Kimmel Center offers to the under-instructed ‘Tourist’ with its mix of European and International Classical Sophistication by the way of Philharmonic feasts and forays, and Airport Terminal like ‘Vault’ and a ‘Hanging Garden of Babylon’ like “box” floating within its etherspace – presiding as a ‘Jurisdiction of Modern Authority’ over that which carries the impartial and self-fulfilled un-commandeerable Cultural Sceptre of the ages.

The Swooning Tourist: Her name could have been Sue, though the author assures that it was not. What the author does confirm, is “Sue’s” diet, which was easy to infer when before the spontaneous witness-ship of the Author and a gaggle of a dozen other bypassers at ‘The Kimmel’ she ‘Gushed’ like a Robin Bird her dietary proclamations. “I had this big Italian meal, with a lot of meat balls you know . . . my digestion never works in the evening! And, Oh! The Music! The Music! ”. Muttering semi-ruefully her isolated, Kafkaesque lines of culinary indictment, she is seen safely held and ‘tucked in’ by the gentle grip and poise of a Pacific Stalwart and Soothe – Lloyd Collins – President of the Union of Workers at ‘The Kimmel’, who with the utmost sophistication of a considerate Soul, invoking the very Cosmic Essence of ‘Om Shanti’ by his calming cadence, refreshing in the visitor the rare and otherwise impossible ‘embrace’ of the exemplified Age Old, Agrarian, Classical American, ‘Autocrat of the Breakfast Table’ tradition and Quintessence, offers in every vignette of ‘Interaction’ the Chronicle of the Timeless Moments.

The entire City represents itself at that very moment in the immemorial, spectacular emissaryship of a Man whose appeal is that of a transposed Spiritual William Penn, whose moral candor and philosophical vehemence downright Jeffersonian. Whose Non-Partisan ‘Free Man of Honor’ and ‘Gentleman of Americas’ Integrity is a Placid and Immovable ‘Whole’ within all the parts and ramparts of spheres of his sage temple ‘The Kimmel’ in which he is almost a Priestly ‘Brahmin’ Presence. Yet ‘Despite’ this seeming loftiness of demeanor, Lloyd Collins is one, whose ‘Rescue Missions’ crenellate and advance every bit, the Ideals of a ‘Few Good Men’, ‘Camelot’, and ‘Stewardship’ as much as it does of ‘Punctuality’, ‘Service’, ‘Tradition’, ‘Legitimate and Affirmed Archetype’, and ‘Essence’ – within the anachronistic cathedrals of the soaring ‘Kimmel Center’, whose unseen Valkyries prowl most likely in dark places, “behind the scenes” and ‘haunt’ the gustatory stoops and visceral maladies of the proverbial passerby. yrhuewf The Hungarian Professor of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania visiting His Holiness Dalai Lama of Tibet in the previous summer gazed with a great and proportioned admiration towards Mr. Collins. It was easy to see ‘Why’, and the ‘How’ followed promptly, uninterrupted by the “Noise” of the throngs. Thanking him with the premium expressions of Gratitude, he ( The Professor) solicited a scribble. “Please – Provide me with an email address – or a contact point. I should like to write a letter to the Performance Center for sponsoring your existence. Such a Civilized presence! What a focused demeanor! I must Thank the Performance Center in correspondence.

Lloyd Collins accepted the accolade gracefully from the aristocratic patron of ‘The Kimmel’ simply nodding his acceptance with a small smile, and offering that he visit the Web Site and approach the appropriate and ‘more informed’ personalities. Art for the Sake of Art. If only James Joyce had visited ‘The Kimmel’. Or rather, Mr. Lloyd Collins of the Fraternal City. The Author too was ostensibly ‘touched’, in the same way thousands are monthly by this ‘Force of Demeanor’, this ‘Marvel of Gentlemanliness’, this ‘Congruent Spectacle’ to all others doled out on a Pay-Per-View basis within the Symphonic Bastions. So he did not hesitate, nor could he permit himself to be bashful to Inquire further ( The Author ).

In a Conversation with the Jeffersonian Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, – decked in his Red Tunic, and his Signature Bow-Tie, Lloyd Collins confided in a rare and intimate moment of Self-Reflection: “ . . . I work here for the People. For the Possibilities. To watch out for the little guy. For the Tradition of it All. Above all, I work here to pay homage to ‘The Music’.” His face: aquiline, indented, ever musing, and perpetual, – gave credence to the existence of an ‘Inner Sun’ lighting up the heavy-lifting of the undertaking of any man. It was for this reason and more – easy indeed to infer the ‘Music’ he was referring to, while very much “the Type” ( of Music ) generated and syndicated by the Good Services of the ‘Center of Performing Arts’, his was a Music in nature a Celestial sort, of a higher, lavender, rarefied pedigree – that could not be bought for any price at all. A Greater and more Silent Proclamation of Freedom had not Culturally graced the concrete pavilions of the Fraternal City in almost a Century – if not ( Certainly ) more. It was the Music of Decencies. Of a Deed Well Done. Of Grace Uplifted. Contemplations of a Better Future. It was Responsibility. My Candor Knew No Bound . . . My candor knew no bound. Impatient as ever, I advanced the Query imperiously, ‘In these times then Sir – How do you Propose to Change the Odds? Surely none express it So Well, none embody the Spirit of the Matter, all seem agog in the muddled powerpoints of Legal this and HR that. How do you perceive yourself Hopeful, what is the Science Sir for a well aged Man of your Purport, and mine, and the Nation’s?”. Lloyd Collins lifted his stare higher, his eyes clearly nostalgic, his mien tinctured with an inner vinegar upon the proverbial ‘Block of Soy’ I offered. His thoughts manicured upon the overgrown shrubs of inner descriptions. At that moment Philadelphia witnessed through my Eyes – that of a Constitutional American – a Rebirth of the Classical Diplomat. Bubbles of ‘Goosebumps’ lined my Olive Skin.

Mr. Collins proposed mysteriously enough the following. “I will put it Simply before this proposal. Young Man the thought has crossed my mind through the Seasons. And I have proposed it this way. A New Position entirely. One of Consideration, Craftsmanship – Yes, all that – but above all, Service. A Commitment to Service. The Highest Art. The Highest Production. The Position I propose is that of a ‘Director of First Impressions’.” ( Lloyd Collins ). Director of First Impressions. How True and Resonant for the Times. For in all the Book of ‘Firsts’, esp. in the Book of First Precedents, with Sustainability taking the Center, ‘The Bar’ being raised, the very Luminosity of the perennial traditions now more needed than evermore, a Director of First Impressions plucked from the talcum Bosom of another Age, whose Spirit is rare, yet much needed. IMG_1523 Whose whiff foregone, with dolorous aftersense lingering in the best of Minds. Whose fortunate flavor permeates yet in the Bastions of a Modern Cultural Cathedral of International Repute. From the core expressions of ‘Moments’ of Mr. Lloyd Collins, American Gentleman, Philadelphian, who retains his correspondence at Berwyn, Main Line, lives simply and with grace, a Man loyal to his Dog, married for thirty years to Dignity herself – Vickie Collins ( who in turn happens to be a Librarian at the Washington D.C. Library Congress ) he remains, at your Service, what more, an Eagle Scout of the ‘Order of the Arrow’, and a trained Fencer, well traveled through the Nations. He is the America that the World must Believe In. For While, paved concrete roads and privatized infrastructure contracts may or may not be the Change We Can Believe In, the Wise and the Visionary, would rather place their Faith in those Changeless and Effervescent Traditions : Those of Ethical Standards and the Decencies of the Ages. As if embroidered with Light As Love, this is the Philadelphia that yet remains, above the plentiful sullies of modern rapprochements. TorchesAndCandles Lloyd Collins is one of the Presidents of the Workers Unions at The Kimmel Center for Performing Arts. He humbly donates his time in the token position of ‘The Usher’. Though in Spirit – and hopefully one day more sensible than the last day or this day, – he shall remain to doting passerbies at ‘The Kimmel’ – without those words, the Implicit ‘Director of First Impressions’, if not also, the ‘Director of Lasting Impressions’.

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ALEXANDER K. RAI – Also Provided the Photography Contained within this Brief. In 2009, he was Nominated as a Marquis ‘Who’s Who in America’ and further Nominated for ‘Who’s Who in America In Business/Finance’. A Resident of the Philadelphia Fraternal City, he travels Widely and is Presently ‘Chronicling’ the Forecasts of a ‘New Europe’. He Reports on an Inter-Disciplinary Purview and ‘Sweep’ of Topics on Behalf of Open SALON Gazette.